SAM TING WONG (SOMETHING WRONG)

I couldn't help but chuckle over reports that an agreement with Cambodia (Kampuchea) had been signed wherein the Philippines would send advisers there to help develop rural health services, agriculture, animal health, irrigation and farm marketing.

In a few years, I thought, that country could overtake us and may even be exporting their products here. Remember, we taught Thai, Indonesian and Taiwanese students who studied agriculture, engineering and medicine right here and then went back home to become leaders of their respective countries. Applying what they had learned here, their countries overtake us to become Asian economic tigers. In the meantime, we remain in the economic doldrums.

Even Vietnam, devastated by close to 50 years of continuous wars and laid waste by tons of bombs from the US Air Force, has risen from the ashes, and many predict would soon overtake the Philippines in a race to become Asia's next economic tiger - or have they already?

What is puzzling is that many Filipino businessmen have rushed over to Vietnam and Cambodia, establishing varied businesses. Do these businessmen now feel they have more chances to strike gold in those countries than here in RP?

The biggest car manufacturer in Vietnam is a Filipino. He could have remained right here. Many other industrialists have formed partnerships with Vietnamese and Cambodian businessmen confident of economic boom in those Asian nations. How come they don't have the same enthusiasm with their ventures here?

(Image from http://danfoss.com/)

ASIAN TIES IN ASEAN'S THAI

Legend has it that the wide world of the SouthEast Asian region was born out of a potent union of the Earth's Indian and Pacific Ocean plates. The region varies from the pastoral landscape of NorthWest Vietnam to the lush forests of Burma, to the lower Himalayas and the snow-covered peaks of Irian Jaya.

And then, from the Himalayas emerged the mountain chain of continental SouthEast Asia down the SouthWest Pacific and the beautiful islands that have appeared out to the South China Sea and on to Austronesia.

This great natural threshold between the Indian and Pacific Oceans contribute to the individuality of the SouthEast Asian peoples, brimming with grandiose diversity, birthing many cultures, different in several aspects, yet similar in many fundamental traits.

SouthEast Asia's geography and topography contribute greatly to the history and life of its colorful civilizations. Against this background, Thailand today plays host to another ASEAN SUMMIT (forum) of the ten countries belonging to the Association of SouthEast Asian Nations - The ASEAN.

These are the great nations of Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, The Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Some periods of our mutual past may have failed at mutual understanding, but our world today has no excuses. For even today, many of us are still ignorant of each other despite the instruments of communication and the speed of the information highway or 'infobahn,' Media may produce an awareness of other cultures, but it is an awareness at times replete with prejudice. What we really need now is a purity of soul.

Our heritage binds us together. Our dreams appear from a common horizon. Our lands remain sacred to our people and our region, despite intermittent alien intervention. We have given such names to our memories and we have drawn the image of our future with the common language we all speak: the language of cooperative unity.

We have transcended borders to form this new identity, and it is our intent to face both Asia and the West, the People's Republic of China in the mainland and the United States of America across the Pacific, as a union of collective strengths with all the energy our individual nations may offer.

May this forum be more than the sum of its members.

May our limitations be the source of our greatness. May the avenues of cooperation and understanding be unclogged and fluent. And may the protocols at the end of the day bring harmony and unity, progress and justice to each of us and to the world beyond our sandy white shores.

(Image from http://www.voanews.com/)